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A demo of the project
Inspiration
As a young girl transitioning from elementary school to high school, I definitely spent way too much money at Starbucks hanging out with my friends because it was cool at the time. What I didn't realize was how much money I wasted there that I could've saved or spent on other items, all because of my lack of knowledge. That's why financial literacy is so important even from a young age, so that youth understand the value of their money and costs of their decisions.
As I grew older, I often would compare the cost of buying a bubble tea to other activities, such as going to the arcade, or buying a shirt. We are implementing the exact same idea in an automated manner through One Bubble Tea.
What it does
One Bubble Tea is a calculator that allows you to input the cost, frequency and duration of your bubble tea purchases. It provides an instant total, as well as suggestions for where that amount of money could go instead, whether that be another item they want more, or understanding the amount you could save.
For example, if I bought one bubble tea a week for a year that costs $5, that is equivalent to $260, which is approximately the cost of a concert ticket or drone. Simply by inputting various factors about my bubble tea purchases, or even hypothetical situations, One Bubble Tea reminds you of what else you could do with your money instead, as well as helping reduce the amount spent on unnecessary items such as bubble tea.
How I built it
We built this using basic programming knowledge from our Programming 11 classes. We applied the grade calculator concept and formatted it to fit our ideas, using html, javascript and css. In terms of the recommendations and substitutes provided, we performed market research of current trends and average pricing of items popular among preteens/teenagers.
Challenges I ran into
The main issue we faced was finding a website to host the code, which would allow the program to be accessed from anywhere.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I am proud of the fact that we were able to create a new concept for youth to understand financial literacy. Many of the financial education games are either simulation games for younger children, or more technical ones that would appeal to high schoolers heading towards graduation, which leaves a gap for the preteens/early teens. One Bubble Tea is a fast and fun way to visualize what the cost of buying bubble tea would be in terms of other popular items.
What I learned
Doing this project was a good benchmark to discover where our strengths and weaknesses lie technically. As this was the first hackathon for our team, we learned so much about how hackathons work, idea creation and working together as a team. In addition, we learned how to analyze and apply personal experiences to broader issues.
What's next for One Bubble Tea
We plan to continue to learn and develop our coding skills, so that One Bubble Tea can become a full fledged website that can be used in real life. In addition, we would like to expand it's scope and information provided, which would create a more comprehensive financial education component.
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